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viable Shadow builds

In the past 6 months I tryed a more or less defensive shadow build and it worked fine so far, most of the time in the top 10 (expect some abysmal placings during skill changes, if you wanna change skills grab those free 200 skillpoints at the lower ranks!!)

Lets call it a "Drain Shadow" build and in my opinion its a very viable build. I hope that 6 months are enough to call them safely a viable build for BG.

As it turned out, the most successful build was a mixed build with a 60/40 win ratio (drain/damage).
The 2 most used weapons are tridents in (offense and defense) and nets mostly for defense.

The second best was a high defensive build with lots of "Defense" from equipment and dropping "dual strike" for another passiv skill. Sadly that build is very weak against trixsters (cheating bastards) which are always lurking in the top spots and ultimately spoil the last week of the season with many defeats....

There are basically two sets of strategies for the howl season. Either you tune your strats against all but trixsters or you dedicate all your 5 slots for trixsters and hope for the best.
I know it would be wise to have at least 3 sets of strategies, 1 basic for the first 2 weeks and 2 other depending on the current 20 glads around yours.

Long story short, a defensive shadow build is viable and able to win a season. Now its time to dive into a more violent build and go full offense.

I will try to update this thread with more "viable" builds and hopefully some exotic unexpected variants. As for now the next update should be about offense

It's ok as a battlefield report.
As a newyear [and hidden] gift to You for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWo-51v-SFA
There is no method to surely destroy a trixter for Shadow. I mean too low damage. Only a chance.

Heavily offensive shadow builds are definitely more than capable of winning consistently against Trixters. Yes, more traditional "drain" shadow builds typically lack the firepower to outlast "cheating bastard" equipped Trixters, but I also feel that is due to the majority of those builds also being defense oriented. Aside from HH who is a heavily offensive "shadow form" build, I have been experimenting with another shadow build Skin Walker that I would term as a heavily offensive spec touch/entangle/chilling aura glad because he is just as capable of killing by damage as he is drain. Results have been surprisingly better than I anticipated, but there are still a ton of quirks to sort out and experimenting and tweaking left to do.

Anyway, I figured I'd share a couple of fight results between HH and some BG Trixters, including one of own Ivar X, who is a royal pain to kill.

HONGI HIKA whips around with his off hand.
HONGI HIKA's ANCIENT WHIP OF THE BLOOD GODS dances through the air, striking at IVAR X with deadly force.
The blow to IVAR X's armpit lands with crippling force! (+327 Damage)

HONGI HIKA looks to maim his opponent with his ANCIENT WHIP OF THE BLOOD GODS.
A serious injury is hit and magnifies the damage!
HONGI HIKA smiles after the beastly hit to IVAR X's forearm! (+396 Damage)

NICEQUEEN gets knocked off balance by the strike and falls to the ground!
>> NICEQUEEN SWITCHES TO STRATEGY 5
HONGI HIKA darts around as if on fire.
HONGI HIKA's ANCIENT LASH OF THE BLOOD GODS lashes out with serpent like speed.
HONGI HIKA lands a strike on NICEQUEEN's belly causing massive wounds! (+524 Damage)